| A | B |
|---|
| BIOS | allows the OS to speak to the hardware |
| motherboard | largest circuit board in a computer |
| serial port | one bit after another |
| USB | newer type of serial port with an rectangular connector |
| real mode | 16 bit |
| protected mode | 32 bit |
| bus l | lines (traces) on a motherboard that allows communication between devices |
| RAM | temporarily holds data and instructions while the CPU processes them. |
| ISA | 8 bit slot |
| PCI | designed for faster devices that couldn't run on ISA. Runs in sync with the system bus at 1/3 or 1/2 speed. |
| AGP | designed for fast video cards |
| device manager | primary tool to use to manage hardware in Windows9x and XP/2000 |
| four system resources | memory addresses, I/O addresses, IRQ lines and DMA channels |
| hardware Interrupt | places voltage on the designated IRQ line |
| ports | another name for I/O addresses |
| booting | process the computer performs when turned on |
